Are Blogalites The New Socialites?

Well not exactly. While you will see them out and about town, generally speaking they won't be wearing the large over-the-top gowns (but perhaps costumes), and they spend more time behind computer screens than lunching or behind flash bulbs. Enter the next generation of "socialites" or "blogalites" as we've decided to coin them. Whether a paradigm shift as a result of the falling economy, or a new tech-savy bread, these stripped down Gawker-described fameball microcelebs are taking a post-human approach and have been furiously creating blog appendages to their current selves over the past year.

Some seek fame, some seek fortune or more specifically "fuck you money", and for some it's simply unclear what their motivations are. One of our favorite subjects (and Gawker's too), Emily "The Eldridge" Brill has been perhaps one of the most unintelligible blogalites to appear in the past 6 months. Having burst on the scene, some of her posts were beyond cryptic, and then she mysteriously disappeared for a few days, only to resurface again. The daughter of media entrepreneur Steve Brill and, thus seemingly financially set, Emily's prime motivation appears to be simply to display her new self, rather her new figure after a very successful diet.

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There there's Micah Jesse. Hofstra student at day, NYC nightlife promoter/fixture/PR maven at night. Micah's "new media" attempts and blog marketing via micahjesse.com, albeit with a very do-it-yourself feel, threw him on the map and has garnered him attention on the scene with close to zero capital input. Now it's safe to say he generates income as a promoter making use of his online persona. Brittany Mendenhall, is another DIYer whose chichi212.com has given her a social voice on the scene as she chronicles, attends, and lives it.

Micah recently set to augment his webpresence with a redesign and a relaunch party to resuscitate its (and perhaps his own) waning influence on the scene because of the emergence of people like Brill who employ fulltime web staff and PR people to pepper the net with her presence. And speaking of fulltime staff, and investment capital, the fameballetes at Nonsociety.com have seem to take blogalite land to a whole new level.

Julia "Lip Dub" Allison in many ways can be credited for helping shape if not create this phenomenon. A Star editor-at-large, TimeOut dating columnist, and frequent lip-dubber on her site, Julia has perfect microcelebrity and now runs a business startup. Similiarly, Meghan Asha (tech blogger) and Mary "The Bag" Rambin (handbag designer) cultivated their own webpresences before teaming up with Allison to form Nonsociety.

But Perhaps the real question is not whether the blogalites are socialites 2.0, but whether they can actually monetize their pursuits. Some socialites like Tinsley Mortimer have made fullblow careers out of their socializing. But blogalites are still an unproven group.

But I wouldn't count these guys out anytime soon. Their costs are low, and their webtraffic only continues to climb. At some point they just might figure out how to make a dollar or two while they lip dub.